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Current opportunities

We have the following opportunities currently available:

Policy Fellowship with DCMS: Developing Areas of Research Interest

A policy fellowship working with the Department for Digital, Media, Culture & Sport (DCMS) to develop their Areas of Research Interest and support external engagement, governance and evaluation of the process. The fellowship will support DCMS in considering its research priorities, identify evidence gaps, and outline a comprehensive document of research questions to engage external expertise. The fellowship will involve external input from DCMS’ new College of Experts, Science Advisory Council and collaboration with organisations such as the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) and UKRI research councils. This is offered as a 0.4FTE fellowship and is expected to run for approximately 9 months depending on delivery.

Deadline: Monday 13 December 23:59

Find out more and how to apply

Policy Fellowship with Newham Council: Improving participative policy making

A 12-month policy fellowship in partnership with Newham Council, focusing on on building the capability of academic-policy maker-citizen collaboration in helping organisations adopt and embed participative policy making. It will build on existing practice by Newham Council and its anchor institutions, universities, the Civic and Democratic Participation Commission, as well as research within the field on open and participative policy making, policy design and civic and democratic participations.

Deadline: 6 December 23:59

Find out more and how to apply

Policy Fellowship with the GLA: Mobilising academic knowledge in London and beyond

A 12-month fellowship with the Greater London Authority (GLA) to pilot a dedicated knowledge brokerage function in order to build knowledge networks between GLA staff and academics in London and beyond. The pilot will also support coordination between universities in London in seeking to apply their academic expertise to regional policy priorities. The Policy Fellowship will also engage closely with the new London Research and Policy Partnership (LRaPP). 

Deadline EXTENDED: 7 January 2022 23:59

Find out more and how to apply

CAPE Collaboration Funding

CAPE Collaboration Funding provides up to £25k funding for collaborative projects between academics and policy professionals. It is open to academic and research staff at CAPE University Partners (non-CAPE partners may apply as CO-I).

The fund operates on rolling deadlines.

Next deadline: 6 December 2021 23:59

Find out more about the CAPE Collaboration Fund

We will be advertising more CAPE opportunities in the near future, please check back or sign up for our newsletter (last updated: August 2021). Read about ways you can get involved with CAPE below.

Sign up for the CAPE newsletter

How to get involved with CAPE

We are always interested in having conversations with those who work in public policy (whether at national, regional or local levels) or public policy relevant organisations to see how we could work with you. CAPE has four mechanisms through which we are exploring academic-policy engagement:

  • Policy fellowships
  • Collaborative funding
  • Knowledge exchange events
  • Training for policy professionals and academics

    • We can work with you to explore whether these mechanisms would work for your organisation and how we could employ these most effectively.

    Note that as a research project we will be evaluating our activities throughout and expect those with whom with collaborate to contribute to this evaluation.

    To discuss getting involved with CAPE, email us.

    Academic, research, and professional services staff at CAPE partner universities can get involved in CAPE in a number of ways:

  • Apply for fellowships to be based in policy organisations. These will be advertised on this page and through our newsletter.
  • Meet policy fellows from policy organisations to discuss their policy priorities and your area of expertise. Get in touch with your institutional coordinator to find out if a policy fellow aligns with your research.
  • Attend knowledge exchange events such as roundtables or workshops with policy stakeholders.
  • Apply for the CAPE collaboration fund. Please note that professional service staff are eligible to be CO-I on these projects.
  • Be involved with the CAPE university training scheme when it launches


    • We welcome involvement from staff at all levels of seniority and particularly (self-identifying) women, disabled, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, LGBTQ+, and neurodivergent staff as they are underrepresented in academic-policy engagement. Previous policy experience is not needed to be involved with CAPE.

    Opportunities will be advertised on this page when available and also disseminated through our newsletter.

    Each CAPE partner university has a dedicated coordinator who is responsible for coordinating CAPE activity across their institution. Opportunities for staff at specific institutions will be disseminated by the appropriate coordinator. All coordinators welcome opportunities to discuss ways to be involved so please do get in touch with them.

    Find out who your institutional coordinator is.

    At the moment, due to CAPE’s remit, we are not developing initiatives with students specifically. However, we believe in encouraging students to learn about academic policy engagement during their career so recommend signing up for our newsletter to find out about our academic policy learnings.

    Although some CAPE opportunities are open to CAPE university partner staff only, we are happy to hear from colleagues at non CAPE partner universities about how we might learn together and to discuss if there are shared interests that we could explore relevant to the CAPE project.

    If you are a member of staff a non-CAPE partner you can:

  • Attend CAPE knowledge exchange events when these are public events
  • Work with colleagues in CAPE member HEIs to develop joint application for the CAPE Collaboration Fund as CO-I (when the PI is at CAPE member HEI). Note that professional services staff are eligible to be a CO-I on this funding.
  • Sign up to our newsletter to keep up-to-date with our learnings from the project
  • Listen to our podcast and follow us on twitter to find out about CAPE learnings


    • Public knowledge exchange events will be advertised here and also disseminated through our newsletter. 

    At the moment, due to CAPE’s remit, we are not developing initiatives with students specifically. However, we believe in encouraging students to learn about academic policy engagement during their career so recommend signing up for our newsletter to find out about our academic policy learnings.